Author Archives: Robin Bates

How May Justus Broke Racial Barriers

By Robin Bates | Published: March 11, 2025

May Justus’s “New Boy in School” broke new racial ground when it was published in 1963. The book is dedicated to me and my brothers.

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Caught Up in a Flood of Remembrance

By Robin Bates | Published: March 10, 2025

For an upcoming talk on growing up in Sewanee TN, I have been rummaging through old scrapbooks. A D. H. Lawrence poem captures some of the emotions I’m experiencing.

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Percy Shelley’s Cry for Freedom

By Robin Bates | Published: March 9, 2025

“England in 1819,” written to protest George III and the Peterloo Massacre, sounds all too relevant today.

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A Mary Oliver Poem for Lent

By Robin Bates | Published: March 8, 2025

Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” works as a Lenten poem but departs from medieval notions of what Lent involves.

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Middlemarch and Trump vs. Expertise

By Robin Bates | Published: March 6, 2025

Incompetence wins out over expertise in Eliot’s “Middlemarch.” And so it is proving to be the case in the Trump administration.

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Beowulf’s Advice for Battling Depression

By Robin Bates | Published: March 5, 2025

Beowulf’s advice for battling dragon depression: don’t go it alone, which itself is a dragon trait.

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Böll on Desperately Clinging to the Past

By Robin Bates | Published: March 5, 2025

Heinrich Böll’s “Christmas Not Just Once a Year” captures the yearning to return to the past that animates many Trump supporters.

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What Musk’s Favorite Books Reveal

By Robin Bates | Published: March 3, 2025

In which I examine Musk’s favorite books to figure out what they reveal: Foundation Trilogy, Stranger in a Strange Land, Hitchhiker’s Guide, Atlas Shrugged, Waiting for Godot, and Lord of the Rings.

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Trump as Putin’s Luca Brasi

By Robin Bates | Published: March 2, 2025

The GOP’s switch from anti- to pro-Russia is like switching from Eurasia to Eastasia in “1984.” But rather than resembling mob boss Don Corleone in the scenario, Trump is more like Putin’s Luca Brasi.

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